For last couple of months I have been struggling to overcome procrastination. I can relate my procrastination to my ABD (all but dissertation) status. And it had became a habit for me. I was putting off everything for ‘tomorrow’. It was affecting my life in every possible sphere in every possible way. But now it seems that I am overcoming it gradually. I have not achieved full control but I am on my way. It is not a one day shot. There are some natural stages that I went through before getting some control over it which I’ll tell you now.
Realization: Do you realize that you are procrastinating? Most of the people I have seen do acknowledge that they know that they procrastinate (a lot). That’s good (not the procrastination part), atleast you are aware of what’s happening. But it adds to another problem. It is frustrating when you know about it but are not able to stop it.
Like one of my friends, let’s call him D, who wanted to quit smoking but even after trying for 2-3 years he was just not able to quit it. Though he realized that smoking is injurious to health (physical and mental), he couldn’t control it. It seems that cigarettes controlled him. Same was the case with me. Procrastination was controlling me, my time, and my productivity. I was like a prisoner who desired freedom but was compelled to follow the orders. But atleast I (and D) realized that there is something wrong with it and something needs to be done.
Practical solutions: I tried to overcome procrastination by employing some practical solutions. I used to spend most of my weekends watching TV. Also almost every evening of mine was spent watching Friends, Everybody loves Raymond, Seinfield etc. Finally one day I just shut down that box for good. I am also an addictive web surfer. I used to spend hours infront of the screen googling and browsing through webpages. It was an easily available natural distractor. So, I stopped casual surfing too in an effort to reduce my distraction time. But nothing worked. After some time I was back on the same routine (though I could reduce some TV watching).
Similarly, D also tried different things but in vain. He would quit every other week and start again after couple of days. Reasons varied but everytime he knew he shouldn’t be starting it again.
The reason for such failures can be attributed to the lack of a strong motivation to be able to give it up. We did realize that we have a problem but were not determined enough to solve it. In other words, we didn’t fully realize the negative effects of our habits, may be because there are no short term negative effects. If it doesn’t hurt you in short term, it is less likely you’ll quit it. We tend to be more reactive to things that have short term effects (gain or loss doesn’t matter) than that have long term effects.
Eye opening moment: Finally, there was one weekend when a number things happenned. I won’t go in detail but in that weekend I realized that if I don’t work towards my Ph.D. any harder in order to graduate soon, my (and my close one’s) life would be doomed. I could see myself failing professionally. I visualized how it would affect me and my close ones and believe me, I didn’t like what I saw. That time I knew I want to overcome procrastination no matter what. And since then I have considerably reduced the time killing activities. What helped me most was that image in my mind of what would happen if I don’t control it. Also, I posted a quote by Viktor Frankl on my desk saying, “To life he can only respond by being responsible.” This quote always reminds me of my responsibilities as a human being and I tend to work more aggressively towards my goal.
D could also quit smoking, completely. One day there was an ad asking for student volunteers for some study on effects of smoking and each volunteer was being paid something over $100.00. This caught D’s eyes and he volunteered (for the money of course). Those people took some tests and showed him what healthy lungs look like and how his lungs have deteriorated in comparison. They also gave him an estimate of how many more years he would live if he continued with the same frequency of smoking. That number and the picture of his lungs were engraved in his mind that day. After that whenever he smoked, that number and the picture would haunt him. He even started the reverse countdown. So, finally he decided to quit it completely for good (of course, with the help of some of the practical solutions he had used earlier but this time there was stronger motivation and he was more determined).
From all this, I find that there is nothing impossible but we cannot make it possible till we really, really, really care. A person can be successful in whatever he attempts if he is sincere to the cause. We find things difficult because either we are not sincere in our efforts or we don’t realize the after-effects (long/short term and positive/negative effects).
Life is too short to be wasted in doing things that you don’t want to. Unless you realize how much damage (personal, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) it is causing you, you won’t quit. So one of the way to overcome such negative habits is to:
- Visualize what will happen if you continue with it.
- Visualize what will happen if you quit it.
- Try to draw a picture bringing in contrast between the two situations.
- If there is a drastic and positive difference, you will be able to quit.
- Else re-work on your visualization abilities and go back to step 1.
I said I gained some control over procrastination but not full control because there are many more things that I need to re-organize to overcome it completely (that would be a topic for some other post). I still do put-off things, like right now instead of working on my project I am writing this post but I am glad that it is some-what constructive procrastination.
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Are you in graduate school doing a Ph.D. or a Master’s thesis? If yes, read ahead. Is it going well? Are you on schedule? If yes, then you don’t need to read any further. Ok, now that you are still with me means not everything is as you expect. Let me tell you a secret – you are not alone. Ohh, you already knew that. Good. I bet you have already read about the 6 Ph.D. myths, and who should do a Ph.D. and why.
No matter what you discuss with your advisor/committee/collaborators, put it in writing and send them a copy. Humans are not really that good with memory. People believe in something today, and tomorrow they forget. If you put it in writing, you can refer back to it and challenge others on what was decided.
